Brahms: Horn Trio Op. 40, Violin Sonata Op. 78, Fantasies Op. 116 [Single, Import]

Teunis van der Zwaart (Artist, Performer), Isabelle Faust (Artist, Performer), Alexander Melnikov (Artist, Performer), Johannes Brahms (Composer), none (Conductor) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: Teunis van der Zwaart, Isabelle Faust, Alexander Melnikov
• Conductor: none
• Composer: Johannes Brahms
• Audio CD (October 14, 2008)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Single, Import
• Label: Harmonia Mundi Franc
• ASIN: B0019ZF2PS
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #201,535 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting Use of Historical Instruments, December 31, 2008

By 

Lawrence A. Schenbeck (Atlanta, GA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Brahms: Horn Trio Op. 40, Violin Sonata Op. 78, Fantasies Op. 116 (Audio CD)

This lovely recording will be particularly interesting to aficionados of historical instruments. Isabelle Faust plays a Strad with gut strings, Teunis van der Zwart a 19th-century natural (i.e., valveless) horn, and Alex Melnikov an 1875 Boesendorfer piano. They tackle three wonderful Brahms chamber works, each of which has been recorded many times by top virtuosi on modern instruments.

I happened to have at hand recordings of all three works on modern instruments, which made comparisons possible. The results -- although subjective -- were surprising.

My overwhelming impression was that, in the Horn Trio, timbral and technical differences between the instruments render many interpretive choices insignificant. In Brahms, the development of thematic materials in all voices is of utmost importance. You want to be able to follow the musical ideas around, from instrument to instrument, to see how they grow, combine, fragment, etc. etc. in the drama.

That turns out to be a lot easier when you've got a Steinway, with its rich tone and long sustain; when you've got a violin with the power of steel strings; and even when you've got a valved horn. The modern instruments are just more capable of closely approximating one another in attacking, phrasing, and sustaining the notes. For better or worse, their timbres are more similar. You can hear the results in a performance from the Marlboro Festival -- Brahms: Sextet Op. 36; Horn Trio -- with Myron Bloom, Michael Tree, and Rudolf Serkin. They achieve tight ensemble more easily, and it's always clear that they're playing the same "song."

But maybe I'm making too much of all that. Will you enjoy this new recording? Absolutely. It is engineered well, in a way that emphasizes timbral differences: the horn fills the room, the piano less so (that pesky lack of sustain again), the violin least well (sounds a bit scrawny in fact). But they tackle the Horn Trio with full Romantic gusto. The combination of richly contrasting timbres is itself fascinating (and it's probably closer to what Brahms heard).

Melnikov also makes a satisfying meal of the Op. 116 Fantasies. Only perhaps in the G-major Violin Sonata could I have wished for greater expressive abandon -- here there are a number of competitive performances that could be recommended. (Although Isabelle Faust really shines in 20th-century repertoire, there's something a bit bleak about her view of Brahms...)

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dynamic mature Brahms chamber music on period instruments, June 22, 2011

By 

Larry VanDeSande - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Brahms: Horn Trio Op. 40, Violin Sonata Op. 78, Fantasies Op. 116 (Audio CD)

The The Penguin Guide has unabashedly promoted this collection as having the first use of Brahms' preferred Waldhorn, or valveless hunting horn, in the Op. 40 horn trio. Here, Teunis van der Zwart (no relation I assure you!) plays the hunting horn and is accompanied by violinist Isabelle Faust playing a 1704 Stradivarius and Alexander Melnikov playing a restored 1875 Bosendorfer fortepiano. The latter, with its wooden harp, has diminished vibrato and sustaining characteristics which work against Melnikov later in the piano music.

When it comes to the main dish, the horn trio, there have been other recordings featuring period valveless horns. One that stands out for me is Lowell Greer's on a (once) dirt cheap Classical Express recording that also included Beethoven's Sonata for Horn and Piano Op. 16, accompanied on a period keyboard by Stephen Lubin, and a horn sonata from the redoubtable Nikolaus Von Krufft. While the CD version of this is apparently out of print, download buyers can still purchase the music for about $7 from Amazon.

Good as Greer is, this one is better. Not only is the timbre of the elderly instruments displayed more fervently by the fabulous recording, the players go for broke emotionally. Zwart is an outstanding player whose lips and tongue must have taken a beating making this record. Faust is a still young virtuoso that specializes in lesser known repertory on period instruments, and Russian fortepianist Melnikov, whose contribution cannot be underestimated, has been her partner on other chamber music recordings including this one.

I differ from the other reviewer pursuant to the ability of the players to strike a unified performance through their period instruments. I see no difference in the work of these players than I heard in the performance he used as comparison with Myron Bloom playing a modern horn. Neither does the best modern instrument version I know, by the oustanding German horn player Marie Luise Neunecker, exceed this performance in that regard. I would argue the reverse, that these player have an unusual unity, in part aided by their elderly instruments.

To get an idea of the players' ability to perform as one, listen to the rollicking beginning of the Scherzo with its dotted, seesaw tempo and dynamics. Going a step further, to understand the depth of emotional utterance this trio brings to the music, hear the closing pages of the Adagio where Brahms' terrible longing -- almost as if he were again pining for Clara Schumann through music as he did when he wrote the Alto Rhapsody -- is more expressively stated than in any recording or live performance I know or have heard. These players have produced the great irony: an irresistably sympathetic and romantic performance of music using the supposedly inferior instruments of the composer's day.

Faust and Melnikov are not on the same exalted level in the Op. 78 sonata for violin and keyboard, mainly because the music never demands it. What impressed me most when I first heard this, and what I keep returning to on repeat listening, is the way Faust asserts herself through gut strings and bowing technique. No one would confuse her tone for the luxurious David Oistrakh for it is lean in articulation and on the edge of wiry. Yet it is never ugly and very well manifests Brahms' autmunal resignation. Even with a lively allegro at the end, following the tumult of the horn trio, this is a performance of high contrast that is at least contemplative, maybe even resigned.

Many critics have downgraded Melnikov's 7 Fantasies Op. 116, one of Brahms late life creations. I don't find the same faults other critics have though I think the playing sometimes transcends Brahms' nature, presenting the Capriccio in G minor as if it were Liszt and the Intermezzo in E minor as if it were Chopin. Melnikov is not always helped by his instrument; the lack of modern characteristics and swift, natural decay in the Bosendorfer sound keeps Brahms' sentiments from hanging around more than a second or two, disrupting the musical discourse. The young Russian is a fiery and passionate interpreter, and possibly his way with these miniatures may be too volatile. He sometimes has a little Glenn Gould humming going on, too.

While it would have been more expensive, I wish harmonia mundi would have employed a period clarinetist, added the clarinet trio and left the piano music home. As it is, this is a masterful performance of the trio and elsewhere never fails to be an interesting portrait of late romantic chamber music on instruments from the time. The horn trio is, in my opinion, nonpariel in the market today and Isabelle Faust is always an interesting, intelligent, cultured and dedicated player worth your purchasing dollar and enduring interest.